B. W.
Golden Frog and Sir John Poley (Vol. i., p. 214. and 372.).—Your correspondent Gastros suggests that "to the Low Countries, the land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of this enigma," (Vol. i., p. 372.); accordingly, it appears from the treatise of Bircherodius on the Knights of the Elephant, an order of knighthood in Denmark, conferred upon none but persons of the first quality and merit, that a frog is among the devices adopted by them; and we need not further seek for a reason why this Symbolum Heroicum was worn by Sir John Poley, who served much under Christian, king of Denmark (Vol. i., p. 214.), and distinguished himself much by his military achievements in the Low Countries (p. 372.).
T. J.
The Poley Frog.—More than half a century ago, I was present when this singular appendage was the subject of conversation in a large literary party, but being then a schoolboy I made "no note of it." My recollection now is, that after some jokes on the name of Poley as that of a frog, allusion was made to an old court story of King James II. throwing a frog into the neck of William, third Earl of Pembroke. The story, with its consequences, may be found in the Tixall Letters, vol. i. p. 5.; Wood's Athenæ Ox., vol. i. p. 546.; Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 249.
I have never seen a head of any engraving of the portrait of Sir John Poley, of Boxsted Hall, not Bexstead. I believe there is none.
D.
Bands (Vol. ii., p. 23.) are the descendants of the ruff a portion of the ordinary civil costume of the sixteenth century. In the reign of James I., the ruff was occasionally exchanged for a wide stiff collar, standing out horizontally and squarely, made of similar stuff, starched and wired, and sometimes edged like the ruff with lace. These collars were called bands. A good example occurs in the portrait of Shakspeare by Cornelius Jansen, engravings of which are well known. At the end of the seventeenth century these broad-falling bands were succeeded by the small Geneva bands, which have ever since been retained by our clergymen and councillors, but in a contracted form, having been originally bonâ fide collars, the ends of which hung negligently over the shoulders. (See Planché's Brit. Costume, pp. 350. 390.) Bands are worn by the ecclesiastics in France and Italy, as well as in England.
In the second number of Popular Tracts Illustrating the Prayer-Book, p. 3., it is suggested that bands are perhaps the remains of the amice, one of the eucharistic vestments in use previous to the Reformation, which consisted of a square cloth, so put on that one side, which was embroidered, formed a collar round the neck, whilst the rest hung behind like a hood. By analogy with the scarf of our Protestant clergy, which is clearly the stole of the Roman Church retained under a different name, this suggestion is not without some degree of plausibility.
The fact that the present academical costume is derived from the ordinary civil dress of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sufficiently accounts for the retention of the bands as a part.